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A rift is growing between Washington and Berlin over how to handle Vladimir Putin and his stoking of pro-Moscow separatism in the Donbas region of east Ukraine. Despite the denials of Secretary of State John Kerry, the split is becoming more obvious with each passing conference — or gathering for peace talks.The Munich security conference has exposed the divergence.

While Obama officials are playing it all down, senior US lawmakers aren’t so reticent. “History shows us that dictators will always take more if you let them,” says Sen. John McCain, comparing Angela Merkel and François Hollande’s talks with Vladimir Putin to Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement of Hitler.

Would have been great to have been a fly on the one for this encounter at the G20:
As the Globe and Mail tells it: “Stephen Harper told Russian President Vladimir Putin flatly that he needs ‘to get out of Ukraine,’ when the two met at a Group of 20 summit of major economies in Brisbane.
A spokesman for the Canadian Prime Minister relayed the details of the encounter and, according to director of communications Jason MacDonald, ‘Mr. Putin did not respond positively.'”

“Pro-Russian separatists in the embattled east of Ukraine got their way today, marring a presidential election that went smoothly across the rest of the country and was being endorsed by poll observers as the cleanest in the 23 years since Ukraine broke from the Soviet Union.” Read my full Daily Beast dispatch here.

And

“Exit polls tonight will give the first indication whether front-runner Poroshenko will have secured the necessary 50 percent of the vote needed to avoid a June run-off. He has been widening his lead, according to recent opinion polls, over second-placed contender former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko. But he may be denied an outright victory because of the crowded field, though some pollsters think he may have pulled off an absolute victory”

My latest article for VOA examines what younger voters fear: they say there must be a mass clear-out of police and judges after Sunday’s poll but they worry there will be a return to business as usual. Read the full story here.

From my latest for the Daily Beast three days before presidential elections:

“The interim government of Ukraine has called for an emergency session of the U.N. Security Council following a dawn attack today by separatists in east Ukraine that left at least 13 soldiers dead and up to 20 wounded. The country’s interim prime minister says he has evidence of Russian involvement in the attack, one of four to take place three days before Ukraine’s presidential elections.”

I have have heard of several families in Donetsk leaving, fearing there will be serious election violence in the east. There have been also worries expressed by foreign election advisers at the lack of preparedness by the Kiev government when it comes to security in the east for the polls. On that I write:

“Under Ukraine election law the police are tasked with providing election security but in the east many have sided with separatists or are not prepared to challenge them. Foreign election advisers were urging the government to amend the law to allow other security services, including the army, to have an election security role but ministers failed to do that. However, they have changed the law to allow soldiers to vote at local polling stations rather than their barracks arguing their presence in the voting queues may help to deter attacks.”

The German government has condemned the displaying before the media yesterday by pro-Russian separatists in the Ukrainian town of Slovanysk of the kidnapped members of the Organization for Security and Cooperation (OSCE). In a statement the German foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, said: “The public parading of the OSCE observers and Ukrainian security forces as prisoners is revolting and blatantly hurts the dignity of the victims.”

Some Western reporters were discussing the issue of showcasing prisoners yesterday afternoon after the press conference staged by the town’s thuggish separatist leader, the former Soviet soldier-turned soap factory owner Vyacheslav Ponomaryov. I missed the press conference, but asked if any reporters had abided by the old standard and asked if the OSCE team members were participating in the news event voluntarily or were being coerced? Apparently no one had.

And this is worrying. Old-guard journalists, with an eye to the Geneva Conventions, used to be more careful and would ask prisoners if they are willing to talk with the press before interviewing them or taking part in a conference featuring them. Also, there is a judgment call that needs to be made here. Even if a prisoner indicates they are willing, they might fear saying they don’t want to because they fear their captors’ displeasure.

In Syria I have interviewed prisoners when I have been convinced they are truly willing. On two occasions I have declined interviewing captives because I felt even though they agreed the circumstances suggested they were being intimidated into doing so or coerced.

The Geneva Conventions state: “Prisoners of war must at all times be humanely treated. … Prisoners of war must at all times be protected, particularly against acts of violence or intimidation and against insults and public curiosity.”

In an article in Slate magazine back in 2003, law professor Michael Byers suggested, “journalists aren’t bound by the Geneva Conventions, they can’t be prosecuted for interviewing or taping prisoners.”

But it is a good yardstick for reporters to follow – and at various times they have done.

Even more worryingly, I am told none of the journalists who were invited to videotape three pro-Kyiv Ukrainian intelligence service, SBU, members who were displayed stripped to their underpants, bloodied and blindfolded expressed concerns about what they were participating in.

In fact, what may be happening here is we, the media, are encouraging the abductions, part of an intimidation campaign waged by thugs among the pro-Russian separatists, and colluding in the stage-management of suffering.

And we need to rethink. I am not going to attend any press conferences featuring captives staged by the pro-Russian separatists, unless I am convinced the captives are participating voluntarily.

As a footnote, it is worth pointing out that pro-separatist boss Ponomaryov claims he is holding people – OSCE monitors, pro-Kyiv politicians and activists and journalists who have offended him – under the “laws of war.” Well, the main laws governing the conduct of war are the Geneva Conventions. If the separatists are invoking the conventions, they should understand they are in breach of them by these shows they are putting on of the unfortunates who fall into their hands.

If yesterday’s Geneva deal aimed at “de-escalating” the Ukraine crisis fails, Russia’s top banks might be the target of the next round of Western sanctions.

This from my radio dispatch last night for VOA:

“As Western powers consider introducing further sanctions against Russia, Ukraine’s government says it has evidence that four Russian banks are involved in funding pro-Russian separatist agitation in eastern Ukraine and is urging Western politicians to sanction them.”

“Kiev officials admit they need to move fast to extinguish the growing pro-Russian insurrection in the country’s east but initial offers of reform, including greater decentralization of powers, are having no effect. The decision to dispatch the army is backfiring badly with soldiers expressing their unhappiness with being deployed against civilians, whether or not they are being egged on by Moscow, and supervised and trained by Russian advisors.”

From my weekend piece for the Daily Beast: “’Putin’s objective remains to regain control of Ukraine, but I suspect he now thinks he can do this without ordering in the tanks,’ says Andrei Illarionov, a former Putin economic policy advisor and now an unstinting critic of the Russian leader.

Illarionov tells The Daily Beast he expects Putin to maintain an intimidating offensive build-up of Russian forces along the Ukraine border, nonetheless, and that there will be no let-up in the fomenting of separatist agitation in the eastern Ukraine towns of Donetsk, Kharkiv, Lugansk and now Sloviansk. The aim is to destabilize Ukrainian politics, weaken Ukrainian state institutions and help Putin’s political allies reassert their power in Kiev.

“The first crack of a sniper’s round in Kiev’s Independence Square came shortly after nine o’clock on the morning of February 20 and the last about seven hours later at around four o’clock in the afternoon drawing to a close the bloodiest day in what had been a months-long struggle to oust Ukraine President Viktor Yanukovych…

Most of the photographs accompanying this article were taken on February 20, and they appear to reveal the truth about who carried out the shootings in Independence Square on that day—a fateful one for both Ukraine and for Europe, which suddenly witnessed the continent’s worst political violence of the 21st century. The pictures shared exclusively with The Daily Beast show members of a crack anti-terrorist unit known as the Alfa Team in the courtyard of the headquarters of Ukraine’s feared state security service, the SBU, preparing themselves for battle. The agency’s seven-story headquarters occupies an entire city block and is just three streets from the Maidan.”

Read full story here about what was going on in the nearby SBU HQ on that fateful day when at least 50 protesters were gunned down.